


Safe Inside

by NotAllThoseWhoWander



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Unrequited Love, brace yourselves maybe, wow all of the angst right here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-09
Updated: 2013-03-11
Packaged: 2017-12-04 21:34:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/715344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotAllThoseWhoWander/pseuds/NotAllThoseWhoWander
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He falls, and there is someone there to catch him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

I.

A winter night, cold, and patchy snow on the ground. Courfeyrac predicts a storm within the week. Joly worries over the possibilities of an influenza outbreak. Grantaire drinks.

He drinks more these days; more than he should, like he's trying to drown something in his chest. Or his heart.

The  _Amis_ gather around a long wooden table, occupying themselves with visions of a future in which every man will be a king, in which children will be raised by a mother country that does not desert them or turn them out in the cold, a country whose fields are rich and whose cities flourish, and

"...and there will be not suffering but rejoicing—the people will be  _happy_. Our people.  _France's_ people. We will  _free._ We will be  _free_!"

Enjolras is practically out of his seat, eyes sparking like errant cherry bombs and he's talking like lightning, putting a hand on Joly's shoulder and the others are grinning and Grantaire sees it in their eyes, too—the hot blaze of revolution, of wanting to fight, fight, fight until you are kicked down and then standing up and fighting more, fighting  _back_.

And he takes another drink and raises his bottle and smirks, and Enjolras catches sight of this and shakes his head, almost imperceptably, and Grantaire laughs loudly and drinks again.

And he wonders why, why,  _why the hell_ does he feel so goddamn empty?

* * *

"Ah, Monsieur Grantaire." 

He's come in after a cold walk home from the Musain on a weekday afternoon, and it's sunny but frigid outside and he's shivering as he strips off his woolen gloves. Madame Saint-Jean is leaning against the stair railing. Her face is set.

" _Bonjour_ , Madame." He goes to kiss her cheek, but she moves away.

"Regrettably, I am giving you a two-week notice, Monsieur Grantaire."

"Sorry?" He stares at her dumbly. 

"Two weeks."

Then it hits him, and he scrambles, speaking rapid-fire, hands moving everywhere at once. "I'll have the rent by tomorrow—by  _tonight_ , if you need it that soon, I—"

"I've got another renter. The flat's been promised to him already." She stares at him. "I'm sorry."

He swallows. " _C'est rien._ "

It isn't nothing. He goes upstairs slowly and then he looks around the cramped apartment, and he thinks,

_Fuck._

_  
_And then,

_I need another bottle of wine for this._

* * *

_  
_He goes to Combeferre first.

"Are there any cheap rooms renting out around the University?"

Combeferre leans in the doorway of his flat. "Depends on what you're looking for. This place is alright, but there aren't any rooms available. Maybe next month, but I doubt it. People around here want to stay."

Since Combeferre's own digs aren't much to jump at—narrow halls that stink like boiled cabbage, too many bright cluttered flats with unpleasant roommates—Grantaire leaves with a heartfelt thank you. 

He asks around the next week at the Musain, not really taking it seriously. 

"I'm only asking for a friend," he informs them. "He's looking for a place on short notice."

If they don't believe him they don't let on, and Grantaire only loves them more, even if no one really knows of a place. Joly suggests that he ask around the Sorbonne—maybe an art student willing to take on another roommate for extra rent. 

The only person that he doesn't ask is Enjolras. 

* * *

"I'm sorry," Madame Saint-Jean says again, as he lifts the last valise. His belongings, condensed into two bags and a crate, seem suddenly paltry. 

"I told you. It's nothing. I have a place to go—my brother, he lives in a nice place on the Right Bank. Really nice."

He wanders aimlessly around the Court of Miracles, listens to a little boy play a wooden flute, buys some cheap bitter wine from an old Gypsy man. He drinks half the bottle and then goes to the Musain, but none of the  _Amis_ are there and so he heads south.

Dusk falls, and then night. Grantaire puts on three coats and joins a group of ragged men huddled around a heap of burning crates under a bridge by the river. They ask him for more fuel, and so he dumps his stuff out and breaks up the crate and tosses the wooden slats in. He sleeps holding his two bags to his chest and wakes up in the middle of the night disoriented and cold. His can't really feel his fingers at all and his feet are completely numb and quite possibly frostbitten (okay,  _maybe_ that's a little untrue, but...) and the water is a low, cold whisper in his right ear. 

Dawn comes cloudy and pale. Grantaire tries to clean himself up as he walks north. He can't spend another night out in the cold; he'll freeze, or be knifed, or...

Or what?

_Would it matter? Who'd be there to weep over my grave? No one. I'd be another lonely, miserable better-off-dead drunk, the city's full of them. I'm nothing._

* * *

_  
_He knocks on the door with a numb fist. The sun has risen but it's still bitingly cold.

He half expects his call to go unanswered, but here are footsteps and then the lock sliding back and then Enjolras, wearing his red jacket and looking only a little exhausted.

"Grantaire." His looks says  _what the hell are you doing here?_

 _  
_"I'm homeless," Grantaire says. "I'm homeless. I've been kicked out. I slept under a bridge. I'm freezing. I'm drunk. Please let me come inside. I think I'll freeze if I stay out there another night. I've become a bum."

Enjolras stares at him with something like disbelief, and then he steps back and says, "Come in."

Enjolras' flat is bright, with unadorned white walls and there are only two small rooms but it's blissfully warm, and Grantaire fights the urge to just sink to the floor and  _sleep_. 

"Here. Sit." Enjolras indicates a wooden tables; there are two chairs, mismatched. Grantaire looks around the room, sees a low chest of drawers and an unmade bed and suddenly feels too warm and awkward, the awkwardness of standing in another person's bedroom too early in the morning, with their bedcovers pushed back and you can see the place where they slept, here in the middle of the bed, track with your gaze where they moved around while they were dreaming, or not dreaming.

"Thank you." He sits. Enjolras goes to a white iron grate and makes him tea. 

"A bridge, huh?"

"A bridge. By the river. Obviously. I burned a crate. They gave me wine." He laughs but it isn't really funny.

"Interesting."

Grantaire wonders what exactly is interesting but he thinks that he has a pretty good idea and so he looks at Enjolras' jacket and says,

"You really never take that damn thing off, do you?"

"I do. I didn't sleep last night." Enjolras stands up and removes the jacket, like he's trying to prove a moot point. Grantaire's mind leaps instantly to what exactly Enjolras had been  _doing_ last night, and of course his first thought is that their fair leader had been fucking someone but Enjolras doesn't fuck people his only love is France he's said it a thousand times at least.

"You'll stay here," Enjolras says, and Grantaire's head jerks up.

"What?"

"You'll stay here tonight." Enjolras strips off his shirt (Grantaire makes a point to stare at the wall) and pulls on another. "It's too cold outside, and those clouds mean snow. One night, and then you'll find a place to sleep—a hotel, an inn, something."

"Thank you, Mother," Grantaire quips. Enjolras glares at him but he ignores this and maybe he's a little too happy about this but, strangely, this is the happiest that he's been in a while. 

* * *

And then some.

* * *

They go out to a student café and drink bad coffee and Grantaire tries to buy wine but Enjolras won't let him. And they both go to their classes and meet up again later. 

And Grantaire convinces Enjolras to go to a bar with him, and there is a folk band playing loudly and badly in the corner and they can hardly hear themselves think. Grantaire drinks a quarter of a bottle of wine and then Enjolras convieniently knocks it off the table.

 _  
_"The _waste_!" Grantaire moans, and tries to pick up the bottle, but Enjolras grabs his wrist.

"It's getting late. We should head home."

Home.

They go through snowy streets to Enjolras' flat. The lock sticks a little but not when they both put their shoulders against it and push.

"It's fucking _freezing_ in here!" Grantaire says, not bothering to keep his voice down. He shivers in the corner while Enjolras lights a fire in the grate, and they wear their coats and scarves for another half hour while the flat warms up.

"I don't see how you can frequent such establishments," Enjolras mutters, unwinding his scarf.

"I don't see how you can avoid them."

Enjolras says "honestly" in a sort of despairing tone. They sit at the table and Grantaire takes out his sketchbook and does a quick drawing—a female nude. He tells Enjolras that it's an assignment but it isn't, and he takes his time on the breasts and the torso, and turns it towards Enjolras when he's done.

"Do you like it?"

"It's very good. Objectively. I don't know much about art."

"Nor about women's bodies, I think," Grantaire says, lightly, but he's staring at Enjolras' face, trying to gauge his reaction and yes, there, a flicker of something behind Enjolras' eyes.

"I'm going to go to sleep now," Enjolras says, turning away. "I've been awake for far too long."

Grantaire says, "I'll sleep at the table," because he wants to be polite and it's better than the floor but of course what he really aches for is

"I don't think so. On a night like this?" Enjolras gestures to the window. "We can share the bed for tonight."

Something in Grantaire's heart leaps madly, completely madly like a scared cat and next thing he knows he's putting on his pajamas and oh, god, alright, they're lying in a bed together and why is his heart turning like this? Why? Dammit. _Dammit_.

* * *

Love, then.

Or lust.

* * *

Love.

Dammit.

* * *

Or lust.

Lust, he tells himself. A perfectly natural reaction to waking up in the small dark hours of the night pressed against another warm body and he could try to untangle himself from Enjolras' grip and maybe slide out of the bed but he finds himself leaning into Enjolras' warmth, desire hot in his stomach but he ignores it, and after some time drifts into dark sleep again.

But when they wake up in the morning it is Enjolras in Grantaire's arms, and Grantaire feels the other boy hard against him.

Enjolras opens his eyes and blinks, as if clearing from his mind a haze of smoke.

He sits bolt upright, eyes suddenly wild, color rising in his cheeks.

"I—must—there's—"

And then he's gone, pushing himself out of bed, practically scrambling through the door and banging out into the hallway. And Grantaire definitely does  _not_ sit up and smirk, wickedly, and he definitely does  _not_ feel a strange sense of sick, sick satisfaction.

* * *

One night turns into three, turns into a week, turns into two.

Grantaire, leery of sharing a bed with Enjolras (although good  _god_ , he wants to) goes down to the Rue de Temple and buys a sleeping pallet for cheap. It's uncomfortable but he'd rather sleep on the floor near the fire than out in the cold. Or ask Enjolras to share the single bed again.

They occupy themselves with classes and Grantaire with his art and Enjolras with his revolution.

Grantaire pretends to be looking around for a flat ( "I just need a cheap place, they're difficult to find these days" ) but privately he's hoping that Enjolras will ask him to stay. He doesn't keep his hopes up, though—

Until one frigid, cloudy afternoon when Enjolras, sitting at his wooden desk, looks up suddenly and says,

"If you chip in with the rent, you can stay."

"Sorry?"

"If you chip in with the—"

"I heard you." Grantaire drops his charcoal. "I wasn't sure if I'd heard  _correctly_. Seems unlikely that our fearless leader should want such company as myself for a roommate." 

Enjolras snorts laughingly. "Your love of wine and women are strictly  _yours_. But you're welcome to stay as long as you like."

Grantaire considers making a snarky quip in return, but he's too happy. So he smiles and stares at his paper and says,

"I think I'll take you up on that offer, Apollo."

" _Apollo_?"

This is the first time that he's called Enjolras this aloud, and his cheeks heat up but he doesn't care because he's laughing and then Enjolras gives him a peeved look and turns back to his desk, shaking his head, and Grantaire says,

"Oh, you know that I love you," in a very joking way but suddenly the air between them is heavy with things unsaid and undone. 

They sit in silence and Grantaire draws. It's only a sketch, light and rough, of someone's face. He's captured the lines perfectly; a cheek, a nose, two wild eyes. 

"What are you working on?" Enjolras asks, not turning around.

"Nothing. Just another female nude," Grantaire murmurs, but it isn't a nude and the figure on the page certainly isn't female. Later he will fold it carefully and put it under his pallet, just in case one day he works up the courage to show it to Enjolras. 

* * *

He buys a bed in the Court of Miracles, from an ancient Italian woman who throws in a cheap, low frame for free, and the next day he and Enjolras shove it up against the opposite wall. This requires shifting the table a little and moving Enjolras' desk to the foot of his bed.

"I'm shocked that you'd agree to move the center of your world like this," Grantiare jokes, running his hand along the edge of the carved wooden desk. Enjolras has informed him that the desk was a gift from a family friend, the only one who supported the path that he had chosen to take. 

"It's not the center of my world," Enjolras returns at once. 

Their gazes snag and hold.

All of the air is sucked from Grantaire's chest.

" _Patria_ , of course," Enjolras says, but his lips barely move. 

"Of course," Grantaire echoes, feeling numb. 

* * *

"There is one man in this  _doghouse_ of a government who stands for the people! One man! Against hundreds more who will not hear the people's cries, their  _needs_!"

Enjolras is standing on a chair, one fist raised. The other Amis cheer and clap; even Grantaire is inspired to lift his bottle in agreement. Sure, he doesn't really go for the whole "revolution" thing (like a group of  _students_ are going to make any difference in this world) but when Enjolras is up there, speaking, pouring his heart out about France and governments falling and a brighter future, with his eyes burning like bonfires and his hand raised—it makes him feel a spark of  _something_ , even if that something is definitely not passion for the revolution.

"Hear, hear!" Joly shouts as Enjolras steps down. His chest is rising and falling very quickly, and Grantaire looks pointedly away.

After that, the excitement dies down and the others begin to leave. Grantaire disposes of his empty bottle as Enjolras approaches.

"Are you ready to go home?"

Something in the way he says it knocks all the air of Grantaire's throat.

He nods, mutely, and they go off together into the cold darkness.

* * *

Two weeks pass. Joly's predictions, usually cast aside as the ramblings of a hypochrondric, come true as a minor outbreak of the flu sweeps the city. Joly disappears from meetings, claiming that avoiding public places is the safest way to escape catching the illness. Combeferre goes south to a tiny village whose name none of them can ever remember to visit his parents. Bahorel, true to his "bad luck" comes down with a cold and cough that he insists is  _not_ the flu. Marius disappears, and the others speculate that it's something to do with his family. Bahorel, too, vanishes—something about missing a few too many History of Law classes.

"Some revolution we are," Enjolras mutters that night at the Musain, gazing around at the assembled Amis: Courf and Jehan and Feuilly and Grantaire, and Gavroche, who is sitting on Courf's lap and eating pieces of bread pilfered from the café's kitchen.

"The others will return with time," Courf says cheerfully. "You know what they say about winter. Things always look worse in the wintertime, don't they, Gavroche?"

"Sure." Gavroche throws a piece of bread at Enjolras. "Whatever you say, guv."

Enjolras stares at the map of France tacked to the wall. "We cannot allow the spark of revolution to die. We  _can't_." 

"And we won't." Jehan looks up from a leather-bound notebook, into which he's been scribbling madly for the past half hour. "We won't."

But then Feuilly has another meeting that he has to attend ( "across town, at the most  _god-forsaken_ pub in the city, of course..." ) and Jehan and Courf leave together at Enjolras' behest. 

"No use making them stay," he mutters. "Nothing to do here, anyways."

"Hey, keep your head up, mister." Gavroche crosses the room and slaps Enjolras on the shoulders. "Everything'll turn 'round eventually, you know what I'm saying?"

"I think I do, in fact."

"You ought to get your mind off this revolution stuff," Gavroche adds. "Go to a bar. Drink. Take a girl home." He pauses and looks, smirking, at Grantaire. "Or a fellow."

"That's enough, thank you," Enjolras says, burying his head in his hands. "Go to your friends, Gavroche."

"Night, guv." Gavroche cries, skittering out of the room. Enjolras raises his head and stares after him.

"Did I just solicite advice from a child?"

"Did you just get told to get drunk and fuck by a child?"

" _T'arrête_ ," Enjolras chides. "Someone needs to teach him manners."

"Maybe he's right," Grantaire says as they put on their coats and pinch out the candles. "Maybe you should loosen up."

"I am  _not_ going to a bar." Enjolras puts his hands in his pockets. "I need to write a letter, anyways."

And so they go home through frozen streets, and snow blows hard against their faces. A storm is coming in, Grantaire thinks.

* * *

Enjolras goes to his desk and tries to draft a letter (no doubt something snarky and very political) while Grantaire lights every candle he can find. The wind howls, wild, against the windows. 

He tries to sketch but his fingers are cold and anyways he can't really seem to catch what he wants to. Besides, all of his sketches, even the more abstract ones, seem to turn into the faces and bodies of golden-haired revolutionaries.

* * *

"Dammit." Enjolras balls up his parchment and tosses it into the corner. Grantaire watches it bounce off the wall, onto the floor. 

"Drink with me," he says. 

"With you." 

"You're too damn upright, Enjolras." He fetches two mugs and a bottle of good wine from the place down near the university. "You could honestly stand to drink a little."

Enjolras stands, crosses the room. He eyes the bottle warily, and when Grantaire forces a topped-off mug into his hands he stares at it for a moment.

"I usually don't drink..."

"Well, there's a blizzard coming in and all of our friends are holed up somewhere else in the city, so the only other person to see you in such a state will be another drunk."

"Such a state. Who is to say that I'm going to be in...?" Enjolras gives him a steely glare. He takes the mug. He sits. He drinks, almost tentatively. 

"Ha. You look as if I'm forcing poison down your throat," Grantaire says lightly, allowing himself another hearty swallow. 

They drink in silence for a while. Something is pulling at the corners of Grantaire's mind, a question that he wants to ask very badly. And that he is definitely not drunk enough to.

He settles for another—something that he's not sure Enjolras will take kindly to.

"Why don't you drink, anyways? Principal?"

Enjolras lowers his mug and runs his tongue across his lips. Grantaire swallows hard, pretending not to notice.

"Something like that." Enjolras says, softly. And then he takes another drink and he says, "Actually, it's more than...meets the eye, I suppose."

"How do you mean?"

"I've seen firsthand what a love of drink can do to a man."

"Your father?"

Enjolras doesn't nod but his eyes speak volumes. "That's a sad story, anyways. I think I've had enough of sad stories." He pauses, and then, looking away, says, "Lately everything has begun to feel like a sad story, R." 

He tops off his mug. "Sometimes, I worry that the hearts of the other just are not in it anymore. That some of them don't thirst for the revolution as they once did. Oh, I know that Courfeyrac and Combeferre and Feuilly will always stand and fight, but I worry about some of the others. About Joly—he worries more than I do, and not only over paranoia—and Jehan—what is a quiet poet like him doing with a group like us, anways? And Gavroche, he's so young. I worry that they are throwing their lives away. That they belong elsewhere. Joly, doctoring the good people of Paris. And Jehan, he could be writing poetry in the countryside, with a beautiful girl and his flowers, and..."

And something broken is there, in his blue eyes, and Grantaire feels his heart break a little. 

"They believe in you, Enjolras."

Enjolras drinks more wine. He laughs, a hollow, humorless laugh. "Yes. They believe in me. Their fearless leader. You know, they barely know me. They think they do, but they don't."

"Oh? And who is this mystery man? Who is  _Enjolras_?"

"Maybe it doesn't matter," Enjolras says, and then seems to realize something and says again, "Maybe it doesn't matter."

"I think it matters."

"What?" He looks up and his eyes are shining and his face is dark and set.

"I think it matters." Grantaire says, and he means it. 

* * *

They talk. Grantaire doesn't want to, but he's drunk and so is Enjolras, who is apparently somewhat of a lightweight. Enjolras won't stop talking about the other Amis, about the revolution, about his fear of failing.

"In 1830, during the July Revolution—so many died. So many. On both sides. Bodies in the street. I remember. I was there. I think about them at night, sometimes." 

"Sounds healthy."

"It isn't." Enjolras' eyes are sharp, like knives. "I see their bodies, but their faces are..."

"Stop," Grantaire says, but Enjolras keeps talking.

"Their faces are Joly's and Jehan's and Bossuet's and Bahorel's and—and  _yours_ , R, and I wake up and I can't unsee that, I can't, I can't stop thinking about it."

His hands are trembling. Grantaire reaches across the table and catches them in his own, stills them. 

Enjolras looks at him and in the flickering light he looks scared, like a cornered animal.

"What am I doing?" Enjolras says, and his teeth come down on his lower lip, and something swells high and tight inside Grantaire's chest and next thing he knows he's half standing up and closing the distance between them. And Enjolras starts against him but then he leans into Grantaire and Grantaire pulls away and Enjolras' eyes are wide and bright and Grantaire moves around the table, his movements unsteady and he can't believe this is happening, he can't believe it, and the wind throws itself against the dirty windows, and

And they are standing and Grantaire pushes Enjolras up against the wall, slowly, feeling like he's moving underwater. Hands, wandering. Enjolras' hands push up under his shirt and across his stomach and his chest and oh, god, he's aching for this, they both are, he can feel it.

Enjolras moans against his mouth, and the feeling is like a shock, like a jolt through his chest and he doesn't think that he's ever been harder, he feels dizzy, drunk not with wine but with lust.

Bed, then, and they kind of stumble and then Enjolras is sitting down Grantaire is pressing his hand against him and Enjolras arches his back into Grantaire's touch and he sort of  _whimpers_ and Grantaire can't swallow, can't hardly breathe.

And oh, Grantaire fumbles and he kisses Enjolras harder, one hand tangled up in Enjolras' hair and then he's touching him, his friend, his secret, and the thought flashes bright and hot across his mind—

_I shouldn't be doing this I shouldn't be doing this I should be_

_  
_"R," Enjolras says, and he practically writhes against Grantaire's hand and all thoughts are gone from Grantaire's mind and Enjolras says, "please," and oh, god, Grantaire is so far gone.

He tries to touch him lightly, because god, he knows that Enjolras has not done this before (has he? with whom?) but he ends up being rough and all of these jerking motions and he's watching Enjolras just come completely undone in his hands and he's thrusting waveringly into Grantaire's hand and Grantaire kisses him but he keeps making all of these damn  _sounds_ and it's making Grantaire crazy, just crazy.

And he knows that it's wrong, that they shouldn't be doing this, that they are drunk and their judgment has been pitched out of a very high window, but then Enjolras moans in the back of his throat and he puts his hand on the front of Grantaire's pants and presses down, and Grantaire doesn't bother stifling his moan and he says,

"Oh, god," and he can't believe that this is really happening, it feels like a kind of a dream or something, maybe, certainly the way that Enjolras is moving against him and the curve of his back and the look on his face, a sort of dark concentration, and then he puts his hand back and his body is stiff and his hand clenches and he says,

"Oh, god, oh, god, R," and he comes hard into Grantaire's hand, shaking, his mouth open and his eyes are dark like the center of a storm. 

* * *

Grantaire pinches out the candles on his way out the door. He leaves Enjolras in the darkness, on the bed, and he goes down the hall to the communal bathroom because he feels, ironically, stupidly, dirty for finishing himself with Enjolras in the room. So he does it alone, in the pitch darkness, biting hard into his forearm when he comes and the only image in his mind, unwavering, is Enjolras' face gone blank with pleasure and oh, god—

He returns to silence, save for the wind screaming beyond the windows. Grantaire crosses the room and moves to climb into his bed but Enjolras says,

"Come here."

So he goes and lies down next to Enjolras, his breath coming nice and slow. He puts his arms around Enjolras and suddenly he hurts, very deeply.

"It was your father, wasn't it?" 

Enjolras is silent for a moment and then Grantaire feels him nod. 

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." He swallows and his throat hurts. "I'm sorry that you have to live with me like this, drunk like this all the time." 

"Don't be. Don't be sorry." Enjolras says, and they are surrounded only by cold, soft blue darkness. "You aren't like him. My father."

"He was a drunk," Grantaire murmurs. "And I am a drunk." 

"You are wrong," Enjolras says against Grantaire's shoulder. "You aren't like him. You are a kind drunk. You are gentle, even if you pretend not to be."

And something in Grantaire's chest breaks and regrows, strong and bitter and he hates himself and the world and at the same time loves everything so much, so much and Enjolras is here in his arms and this feels so hot and unreal, and without knowing why he feels suddenly and immesly sad. 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

He wakes up slowly, without opening his eyes, sated but confused.

And then it hits him and he remembers.

Grantaire sits up, eyes going wide but his vision is blurred with sleep, and he swipes at them and blinks, and he's alone in the bed. Enjolras is sitting at the table, his gaze fixed on a chipped mug from which steam curls, thin and gray like smoke.

 _Oh, god. Oh dear sweet Mother Mary, help me._ Grantaire, who has never been a religious man, considers praying. 

"It hasn't let up," Enjolras says, nodding towards the window.

"Huh?"

"The storm." He pauses, seems to consider. "Nor the pounding in my head, come to think of it."

"Right." Grantaire stands up, his frame stiff and aching. His mouth is heavy and dry, his chest leaden with guilt. 

He's trapped. He's crossed a line that shouldn't even have  _existed_ in the first place—he'd gotten Enjolras drunk—innocent, chaste Enjolras, whose only love is for Patria—and taken advantage of him. 

"Drinking more wine helps, doesn't it?" Enjolras pushes aside his mug and tips the bottle towards his mouth.

"Is that tea?"

"Yes. Would you like it?"

"No." Grantaire stares, waiting for the bomb to drop, for Enjolras to shout at him, maybe storm out of the flat. Kick him out, banish him from the Amis. 

Instead, Enjolras offers Grantaire the bottle.

"Hair of the dog that bit you?"

Grantaire accepts it silently, swallows a heady mouthful. He says, "are you alright, Enjolras?"

"Of course. Do I look poorly?"

"No, no, I wasn't...I only—you look pale, is all." Grantaire eases himself into the neighboring chair.

"Not surprising."

"Well, are you? Alright?"

"Fine." Enjolras stands and shakes out his jacket. "Strange dreams last night, is all."

It's like the wind has been knocked out of Grantaire's chest and he swallows with some difficulty. 

"What do you remember of last night, anyways, Apollo?"

Enjolras pulls a face; at the use of the nickname or at his hangover Grantaire cannot tell. 

"Not much. Drinking. I believe that I fell asleep at the table—I must have. In my dreams, I was—" and here he pauses and looks away. Grantaire sees color rising in Enjolras' cheeks. "Well, that's not important. Drink often leads to strange dreams, doesn't it?"

And he looks at Grantaire as if searching for reassurance. And maybe, yes, Grantaire's heart breaks but this is golden and beautiful and he says,

"Every drunk has strange dreams. Strange, or..." He picks up the bottle and drinks, and the wine is bitter and choking in his mouth. "Did you dream of bedding a woman, Apollo?"

Enjolras' mouth twists into a smile that looks, Grantaire thinks, almost frightened.

"Something like that, yes."

"Nothing unusual. Even a statue like yourself can't resist a certain amount of charm, I suppose."

"No," Enjolras says, his lips barely moving. "No, I suppose not."

* * *

They skirt around each other for another week; while Enjolras tries to gather the other Amis together, Grantaire drowns his guilt and sorry and stupid sadness in whatever alcohol he can get his hands on.

He's afraid that Enjolras will remember.

He's afraid that he won't.

* * *

" _Où est Grantaire_?" Courf shuffles a stack of parchment, the edges of the paper curled like dry leaves.

" _Je n'ai sais pas. Je n'ai pas il-vu pour deux jours_." 

"I thought that you lived together," Courf says, and gives Enjolras a cutting stare. "You ought to keep better track of him." 

"I'm not his mother, Courf," Enjolras says, but Courf's words and his gaze cut like a knife. "You should go home, anyways. There's nothing left to do here."

And there isn't. The other Amis are still preoccupied with their lives. The weather has been bad. People are falling ill across the city. 

Courf asks if he's certain and Enjolras says yes, of course he is, they all need to rest, at any rate, and he strikes out for home alone with his hands in his pockets. 

The cold, unavoidable truth is that he has been avoiding Grantaire.

Because Enjolras remembers.

How could he not? How could he forget the hot, unforgiving press of lips against his own, the mad fumbling of hands across chests and then lower, lower, and leaning back, forcing himself up into Grantaire's hand, and he'd never felt like that, wild and unstoppable, and he'd been ashamed of the sounds that he'd made when he came.

It was his fault, of course. He'd been drunk, something that he had long vowed never to fall victim to, and he'd obviously mislead Grantaire in some way, and at any rate he'd been hard and that was enough, wasn't it? 

Thinking about it makes him feel sort of sick, so he doesn't. 

He tries, in vain, to focus on the revolution: maps of the city, supplies, ammunition. But his mind drifts over and over again, involuntarily, to Grantaire, to the feeling of another man's hands on his body, his back arched stiff, his vision going hot and white, he'd been  _begging_ for it. 

And then, of course, he thinks about Rémi, and feels even worse.

* * *

_They had been neighbors, friends only because they were roughly the same age and lived next door to one another. It was a pleasant neighborhood, full of narrow, stately old houses with stone roofs. Rémi was Enjolras' elder by two, nearly three years. He was a kind boy, and sensitive, and handsome in the way of little children._

_And then they had grown up, and grown apart somewhat, and Rémi had a job at his father's mill as a surveyer and Enjolras was going to go off to school soon—the Catholic école some miles to the north—and they saw little of each other but were still friendly._

_It was evening, and Enjolras was talking with Rémi, with his books under his arm. They talked about things of little consequence._

_"Will you be afraid to go to school up north?" Rémi asked._

_"No," Enjolras said, although he was a little afraid. "I am excited. I'm going to be one of the youngest in the class. All of the other boys are already thirteen."_

_"Well, I'm sure that you'll be the smartest. You always were good at school," Rémi said, almost grudgingly, and then grinned to show that he meant no harm. "Anyways, we should do something before you leave. Something to remember me by, when you're up there with all those cruel nuns."_

_And Enjolras said yes, of course, they should do something of consequence before he left. And then his father appeared, home from work with his heavy coat on. He all but pulled Enjolras away. He was scowling. As Rémi made his way back inside, his father took Enjolras' shoulder, hard, and said,_

_"I want you to stay away from that boy."_

_"Why?" Enjolras said. "Il est sympa, et il est comme un frère."_

_"He hangs around with the wrong sort."_

_"What do you mean?"_

_His father tightened his grip, hard and bruising. "Don't question me."_

_"Je ne comprends pas, Je ne—"_

_But his father hauled off and slaped him across the face, hard, and only once. Enjolras nearly yelped but he bit it back._

_"Tu veux savoir?" His face was dark. "That dirty little fucker takes it up the ass. Do you_ understand  _that? Do you?"_ _  
_

 _And he went inside and Enjolras stood outside in the hot evening and he looked backwards at Rémi, at the boy's thin rakish face, and of course he knew what his father implied. Of course he'd heard men in town cough and catcall and shout abuse at certain other men, and he knew only that their secret was something dark and private and_ wrong.

_Rémi lifted a hand and waved. Enjolras waved in return, his movements stiff._

_Then he turned and went inside._

* * *

_  
_"Grantaire?"

He hears the voice, distant, like a dream.

"Grantaire? Are you home?" 

He sits up. The flat is dim and cold. He doesn't feel drunk.

Grantaire feels like fucking  _death_.

His chest aches, heavy, and his throat constricts with the urge to cough.

"Grantiare?" Enjolras comes through the doorway with a burning match in his fingers. He lights the glass lantern on the wall. His gaze falls upon Grantaire and he starts as if shocked. "Holy...Grantaire!"

Grantaire struggles upright in the chair, empty bottle slipping from his grip. It doesn't break but rolls on the uneven wooden floor.

"D'I look that bad?" He forces a laugh.

"You look horrible," Enjolras says, and he looks disapproving. "How drunk are you?" And then, to himself, "Why do I bother asking?"

"Not very. I'm fine." Grantaire tries to stand, he feels like he's slammed headlong into a brick wall and every inch of his body hurts in a heavy aching way. "Fine. Just le' me sleep it off."

"If you're sure," Enjolras says, and stands aside and lets Grantaire fall onto his unmade bed. He lies there, silent, letting himself breathe and trying very hard not to cough or otherwise move. The room is still and hot, but Grantaire feels himself convulse, shivering against his will.

A few moments pass, and as he begins the slow slide towards unconciousness he's dimly aware of someone pulling a blanket up over his shoulders. He tries to smile but his chest feels weirdly tight and why the hell is he so  _cold_ when the room is so hot?

So Grantaire tumbles into an uneasy sleep, headed down a dark path twisting with wild fever-dreams. 

* * *

He wakes up in the middle of the night, coughing so hard he can't breathe, and his vision is blurred and his entire body aches and quivers.

"Grantaire?" Someone speaks close to his ear. "Grantaire, are you alright?" 

He tries to hack out an answer but he can't, he can only cough harder. There is a cool hand against his forehead and then a sound of despair.

"I think I should find Joly. You've got a wicked fever, Grantaire."

He manages to make some kind of sound but his throat feels like fire and tasted like copper, and he realizes that it's blood in his mouth, and then there are hands on his shoulders and someone sort of easing him backwards and speaking softly to him, as to a frightened animal, and a hand on his cheek, cool, and he leans into it.

He knows that it's Enjolras, and Enjolras, bless his marble heart, tends to Grantaire with no small measure of patience. He goes out in the small hours of the morning (tactfully ignoring the fact that Grantaire is clinging to his hand and moaning  _don't go_ ) and returns with wicked-tasting medicine from Joly, who refuses to come anywhere within a two-mile radius of Grantaire. And when Grantaire is half-awake and bent double, coughing madly and half-crazy from the fever, someone sits on the bed with him and then somehow ends up lying down and holding him, and he gives into their warm embrace and closes his eyes and when he wakes up there are hands around his waist across his stomach and a body pressed warm against his.

And he closes his eyes and lets himself breathe and Grantaire is, for the first time in a while, strangely, maybe disturbingly, happy. _  
_

* * *

"You can't drink," Enjolras says.

"Wine is  _healthy_ ," Grantaire reaches for a bottle but Enjolras pulls it away from him.

"I'm going to pour all of this into the gutter if you dry out."

"Why?"

"You're still recovering, you idiot." But Enjolras smiles a warm white smile, and then they are looking at each other and then there is a tension to the silence and Grantaire is leaning forward and Enjolras is tilting his head to the side and oh, god, his eyes are half-closed and Grantaire's chest is tight and full and oh, oh, god—

And Enjolras turns away, lowering his eyes. "I..."

"Enjolras," Grantaire says. "Enjolras, I'm sorry." 

"You've got to understand," Enjolras says, very softly. "You...it..."

Grantaire's chest burns.

"I have to go—meeting with Courf at—the Musain, I..." Enjolras turns to leave, but Grantaire catches his arm.

"Thank you," he says. "For...caring for me."

"It was only two days. I had nothing better to do," Enjolras mutters, and then pulls his shoulders back. "I wouldn't do anything less for you, Grantaire."

The look in his eyes lingers long after he's left.

* * *

He comes home and it's raining. Grantaire has lit a fire in the grate.

" _Salut_ ," Enjolras hangs up his damp jacket. "Courf sends his greetings. And tells you to stay away from open flame, what with all of the alcohol in your blood. His words, not mine."

But Grantaire laughs. And, strangely, he hasn't really felt the urge to drink today. It's the cough, he tells himself. Does funny things to men's minds. That's it, of course.

"I need to talk to you, R," Enjolras says.

"About what, Apollo?"

Enjolras pulls out a chair. "About love."

Grantaire's heart drops through his stomach and through the floor and keeps falling and—

Enjolras laughs without humor. "It was a joke, R. This is about the revolution."

"Of course." Grantaire sits. "Speak, Apollo. I am your oracle."

"Problems have arisen," Enjolras says, and he speaks very slowly, staring at his hands. "I worry that the flame of revolution will die within the hearts of some of our own."

"It won't," Grantaire says without thinking.

"And I worry that it will not." He puts one hand on top of the other, as if to quiet them. "Tell me, Grantaire. Have you held a gun? Fired one? No. I didn't think so. I don't mean to offend you, you understand that—I just mean that—we are not equipped to fight a  _revolution_." A tortured, frightened look comes across his face. "And I can't tell Courf, because he's the center of the Amis. I can't tell Combeferre or Joly or Jehan or Feuilly, because they would doubt me, they'd know me as a coward. I can only tell you."

Something inside of Grantaire breaks into a thousand sharp shining pieces.

He says, "I know."

He thinks  _I love you_.

* * *

Weeks pass. Springtime. The freeze is over. On his way home from classes Grantaire can track the flight paths of sparrows in the sky. The Amis rejoin at the Musain, Enjolras having prepared a rousing speech for the occasion. 

He speaks of uprising, revolution, war-banners and courage and broken chains, and Grantaire listens and he cheers when the others do.

And he doesn't drink. He doesn't know why.

He doesn't need to. 

* * *

Closer, then. He feels the coming revolution like a frantic heartbeat, and he is frightened and he is excited. The Amis make preparations in the unhurried way of young men who think that they have all the time in the world.

* * *

They are cleaning guns and it's raining outside. The guns frighten Grantaire, in an offhanded way, because he isn't sure where Enjolras has aquired all of these weapons and although the Amis are learning fast they are learning for the first time. 

He wonders if the others can feel it too, the coming wave.

* * *

 "How comes the revolution?"

Enjolras has come through the door, it's nearly midnight and the candles are scalding their iron brackets. "Fine." He doesn't look at Grantaire.

"Well." Grantaire's fingers move deflty over a sheet of rough paper. Once, he might have hidden it. Now, he doesn't bother. Let Enjolras see. 

Enjolras glances over, his eyes raking across the paper. He swallows hard. "I like it."

"Do you." Grantaire shifts the drawing. A man's figure, standing straight-backed on a jumble of a barricade, head thrown back. A flag streams from his hands.

"Yes." Is there a smaller revolution boiling behind Enjolras' eyes? A slow realization? Or is he dreaming, is he deluded?

"I can feel it coming. Change. I don't want to, but I do. Don't you?"

"Yes, R," Enjolras says, slowly, his eyes fixed on Grantaire's. "Yes, I feel it, too."

* * *

They talk. The candles burn lower, hotter.

"I worry. More than I should, I think."

"You worry too much. You should drink more. It would make you happier."

"Like it makes _you_ happier?"

Grantaire doesn't know what to say to that. 

 "Well," Enjolras says, "at any rate I'm worried."

"You're scared."

Something (anger?) flashes sudden and sharp in Enjolras's eyes. "I'm not  _scared_ of anything."

"Oh." Grantaire stares at the tabletop. Rough wood, damaged by time and use. "I'm sure."

"I'm not  _weak_ ," Enjolras says, and he almost spits the word. "Fear is weakness."

"And are you scared of this?" Grantaire says, and he twists his lips into a smile, and with a heart full of guilt he leans foward and kisses him.

Enjolras twists against him, a motion almost like flinching, and Grantaire pulls away and hisses  _do you want me to stop_ against his neck and no, Enjolras shakes his head and Grantaire takes this as a good sign, maybe, but then why does he feel so horrible? And they are stumbling, blind—and how blind he is in this instant, and he hungers for the light—across the floor, chair scraping on wood, and then the best, and they fall against it, Grantaire loose-limbed with drunkenness and painfully hard. He presses himself against Enjolras and this movement illicits a low moan from the other boy's throat, and god, it sends a  _shock_ through him. _  
_

"Fuck," Grantaire says. He goes to touch Enjolras but Enjolras is fast, grabs Grantaire's hand and his eyes shine bright and sharp and full.

"I want to touch you," he says, and Grantaire's chest flips and twists. 

"Enjolras—"

"I'm not scared," Enjolras says, like this is a dare, a challenge, and he fumbles with Grantaire's belt and then—oh  _god_ , a touch like ice and like fire and yes, yes, his strokes were uneven, might have been awkward but they drive Grantaire to the edge, he's gasping, can't breathe right at all and he wants to give Enjolras something in return. There is nothing but sweet friction, and Grantaire feels his entire body hot and tight, pliable.

"F- _fuck_ ," he moans, shakily, and feels himself hurtle over the edge of the cliff and he comes, hard and shameless, hissing Enjolras's name. It feels like a profanity in his mouth, like cursing the Madonna. Or something.

And then he can breathe again, sort of. And he looks at Enjolras and Enjolras looks at him, and there is a long cool moment, breathless, and Grantaire takes Enjolras up in his arms, and Enjolras does not resist. 

They lie side by side, and the candle burns down low, and the room is dim and hot. Grantaire closes his eyes but he feels Enjolras against his side, hard, and he can't ignore it. 

"Enjolras," he says, and pushes his hand down the front of his pants in the darkness. There is no resistance. Grantaire didn't think that there would be, not now. They end up halfway against the wall, Grantaire tortured by Enjolras's half-open mouth, the hooded look in his eyes and he's impossibly hard and keeps moaning, softly, almost sadly, and

"R, please," and his body is strung tight like a bowstring, and he's burning hot in Grantaire's arms and Grantaire's hand is fast and clever, and evidently he's torturing Enjolras, too. And now there is nothing but heat and brightness, burning through the maroon darkness and Enjolras's voice, low and desperate in Grantaire's ear.

"R," he says, "God, R."

And his back arches, tight, against Grantaire and he cries out, a soft sound in the dim room, and collapses jerkily. Grantaire almost laughs. He is drunk, but not so drunk that he doesn't recognize what's happened. 

He drifts into a sated sleep, with Enjolras curled up next to him, the room airless but in a good way.

* * *

He wakes in the middle of the night, Enjolras pressed rock-hard against his side.

"What is it?" Grantaire mutters, blinking, but in the next instant Enjolras is on top of him, holding Grantaire's wrists above his head, grinding against him, into him, relentless. "What do you want?"

Enjolras smiles, a sharp white smile in the cerulean darkness. He puts his mouth close to Grantaire's ear and growls, "I think you know what I want."

* * *

He wakes up with the taste of salt and wine burning on his tongue.

And.

He's alone in the bed.

Grantaire's heart drops through the floor. 

_No, Enjolras. Please._

_  
_He pushes himself upright, torn between climbing out of bed and falling back asleep; maybe the later would afford him the opportunity to pretend, even for a while, that last night's events had all been part of some wonderfuly, dizzying dream. But eventually, Grantaire would have to wake up. And he'd have to change his clothes and go up to the Musain and see Enjolras, and listen to the Amis get riled up about revolutions, and he would have to watch their fair leader make speeches and stir the spirits of the others, and pretend that he didn't fall asleep thinking desperately about that clever mouth doing _other things_ that definitely did  _not_ involve speeches or politics.

And he would have to drink, and to lie to himself, and hate himself, and yawn and be vulgar and make bad jokes and—

"R."

His heart skips a beat, maybe two. 

Enjolras comes into the room with his hair messy, having changes his clothes but wearing the same jacket, which he sheds.

"I had to post a letter."

"Come here." 

"What?"

"I said, come here." Grantaire watches Enjolras draw close, stand beside the bed, and it's obvious that he's humoring Grantaire. And Grantaire catches Enjolras's hand in his own and holds it, tight.

"What are you doing?"

Grantaire traces his finger across Enjolras's knuckles.

"Making sure that you're real."

Enjolras considers this, his lips parting, and then Grantaire has yanked hard at his wrist and he tumbles onto the bed.

"R!"

"I woke up alone, I'd thought you'd left," Grantaire says, soft and coarse. "I thought you'd left me. You scared me, Apollo."

"Don't," Enjolras says, "call me that."

But their gazes catch and hold, unrelenting, and Grantaire hisses  _you ass_ in the hot instant before they come together and kiss.

And later, when Enjolras pulls himself away, muttering about speeches to write and pamphlet-making to oversee, Grantaire catches his hand again and says,

"What are we doing?"

From a distance of three inches, they stare at each other.

"I don't know," Enjolras says, slowly.

"The first time I've heard those words from your mouth. I assume that it'll be the last."

"I am serious, and you wild," Enjolras says, almost against Grantaire's mouth. "But when it comes to you, I am ignorant."

"Do you want to be? Ignorant?"

"No." And the silence is static between them. "And if ignorance is bliss—" and here their fingers fumble together, the movement uneven, "than give me misery." 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoy this chapter! Also, I'm really bad at writing smut so. (((But I tried ok!!!!!!!!))) you all rock. peace out.


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